How to Right a Wrong: Empirically Evaluating Whether Victim, Offender, and Assault Characteristics can Inform Rape Kit Testing Policies
| Autor: | Dhruv B. Sharma, Rebecca Campbell, Steven J. Pierce, Hannah Feeney, Rachael Goodman-Williams, Giannina Fehler-Cabral |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Michigan
050103 clinical psychology Combined DNA Index System Sample (statistics) Criminology Logistic regression Resource Allocation Specimen Handling 03 medical and health sciences Law Enforcement 0302 clinical medicine Criminal Law DNA database Humans 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences Crime Victims Sexual assault Forensic Sciences 05 social sciences Criminals Kit testing United States 030227 psychiatry Test (assessment) Psychiatry and Mental health Clinical Psychology Rape Female Databases Nucleic Acid Psychology Criminal justice |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. 20:288-303 |
| ISSN: | 1529-9740 1529-9732 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/15299732.2019.1592645 |
| Popis: | Hundreds of thousands of previously untested sexual assault kits (SAKs) have been uncovered in police property storage facilities across the United States, representing a national failure in institutional response to sexual assault. Faced with this discovery, jurisdictions must now decide if and how they should test these kits. Some stakeholders have suggested prioritizing kits for testing by victim, offender, or assault characteristics, based on the belief that these characteristics can predict the likely utility of DNA testing. However, little research has examined the empirical merits of such prioritization. To address this gap in the literature and inform SAK testing policies, we randomly sampled 900 previously untested SAKs from Detroit, MI. The sampled SAKs were submitted for DNA testing, and eligible DNA profiles were entered into Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the federal DNA database. Police records associated with each SAK were coded for victim, offender, and assault characteristics, and logistic regression analyses were conducted to test whether these characteristics predict which SAKs yield DNA profiles that match ("hit") to other criminal offenses in CODIS. Testing this sample of previously-untested SAKs produced a substantial number of CODIS hits, but few of the tested variables were significant predictors of CODIS hit rate. These findings suggest that testing all previously-unsubmitted kits may generate information that is useful to the criminal justice system, while also potentially addressing the institutional betrayal victims experienced when their kits were ignored. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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